


Falling With Style

by flibbertygigget



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: BAMF Jessica Jones, Episode: s04e10 Midnight, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mind Rape, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23853502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: Jessica was coping, even if that coping did come in the form of travelling around in a blue box with an alien who looked weirdly similar to her former abuser. Midnight made it harder.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Jessica Jones
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	Falling With Style

The Doctor was off at a phone booth, trying yet again to get Donna to come with them. Fuck knows why they still had phone booths on an alien planet in the 37th century. Jessica was standing near the entrance to the terminal, trying not to look too brooding or too out of place.

If you had asked Jessica Jones what she expected to be doing with her life, travelling through time and space in a blue box with an alien wasn’t it. The fact that the alien looked weirdly similar to her former abuser just made it, well, weirder. The fact that she had punched him in the face, thrown him into a brick wall, and very nearly snapped his neck when they’d first bumped into each other in New York… well, it was weird. Her entire life was just a pile of weird.

“Well?” she said when he approached her. “Is Donna coming?”

“Nah,” he said. “But, hey, at least you’re here.” If she had been Donna or even a complete stranger, he would have reached out and grabbed her arm or bumped her playfully with his elbow, but the Doctor always gave her enough space to breath. She both loved and hated him for that.

Less than ten minutes later, they were boarding the - space bus? Whatever. There was a brief moment of awkward shuffling as the Doctor seemed to debate whether to give her the window or aisle seat, which she ended by shoving past him and sitting on the inside. She would not have him acting awkward or coddling her, even if she did feel a little too hemmed in when an older man and younger woman sat right behind her. Jessica closed her eyes, ignoring the hostess and the snatches of conversation she could hear around her - and the way the Doctor was eyeing her carefully. He could just fuck off with his concern.

“Hobbes, Professor Winford Hobbes,” said the man right behind her. 

“I’m the Doctor. Hello.”

“It’s my fourteenth time.”

“Oh, my first.”

“And I’m Dee Dee,” said the woman. “Dee Dee Blasco.”

“Don’t bother the man,” Hobbes snapped. That made Jessica open her eyes and turn to glare at him. He seemed to shrink back slightly when his eyes met hers. Good. The Doctor was hovering and smiling awkwardly, though she had a feeling that it wasn’t because of anything  _ she’d _ done. Also good.

“I’m Jessica,” she said, addressing Dee Dee. Dee Dee shook her hand. She looked like she was going to say more, but then the hostess started going through her spiel and all four of them turned their attention to the front.

“What’s the point of a sight-seeing tour where you can’t sight-see?” Jessica muttered to the Doctor when the shields blocked the windows. “And don’t they have Google glass or something in the 37th century?” she added when the entertainment started up. The corner of the Doctor’s mouth twitched upward, and as she watched he slipped his sonic screwdriver from his suit jacket and slowly extended the tip. Abruptly the so-called entertainment system shut down.

"Well, that's a mercy," Hobbes muttered behind her.

"What do we do?" said one half of a middle-aged couple sitting a few rows in front of them.

"We've got four hours of this? Four hours of just… sitting here?" said her husband. The teenage boy sitting as far from them as possible rolled his eyes.

"Well," said the Doctor, pulling himself up so he was kneeling on his seat, "anyone up for charades?"

* * *

Two hours later and the Doctor was talking with most of their fellow tourists like they were old friends. The middle-aged couple had turned out to be named Val and Biff. The teen was named Jethro, though Jessica's snarky remark about him being named after either the band or the hillbilly went unappreciated. 

The only person the Doctor hadn't managed to completely charm was the lady who looked like a cross between a bird of prey and a bank manager, who had resolutely kept her eyes glued to her book after moving to the back of the vehicle. Jessica had gone into the bathroom to get away from yet another insipid story of Val and Biff's, not to mention the creeping sense of claustrophobia, but as she passed the woman she hesitated. There was something about her carefully constructed aura of standoffishness that was sinkingly familiar.

"Hey," Jessica said. The lady's eyes flicked up, but she otherwise didn't acknowledge her. "You need me to get him to bring it down a notch or ten?"

"That isn't necessary," the woman said stiffly, but her attention didn't return to her book. Jessica figured that was sort of an invitation.

"I'm Jessica Jones," she said.

"Sky Silvestry," the woman said, shaking her hand. "And I appreciate your offer. That friend of yours is- Or are you more than friends?"

"Fuck no," Jessica said, sliding into the seat beside her. "It'd be a bit- Well, it's weird enough being friends, what with him being the spitting image of-" She bit her tongue. Not her ex, that wasn't the right word, but there were no words that wouldn't make this situation even more awkward than it already was. To her surprise, though, Sky seemed to catch on.

"I found myself single rather recently myself," she said, and Jessica got the impression that this was something she'd discussed with very few people. "Not by choice."

"What happened?"

"Oh, the usual. She needed her own space, as they say. A different galaxy, in fact. We were quite terrible for each other by the end, but…"

"Yeah," Jessica said, thinking about both her aborted love affair with Luke and the whole Kilgrave disaster. "Mine was a bit more… one-sided in the terrible department. Travelling with the Doctor's been… Well, it gives me a bit of my own space, as you said. Even if he's always being all," she gestured at the Doctor, who was laughing uproariously at something Dee Dee had said, "that." Sky opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment the vehicle abruptly ground to a stop.

"What's going on? We can't be there yet," Sky said. She'd abruptly tensed up, and Jessica had a feeling that she'd managed to connect with the one person with more issues with feeling trapped than she had.

"Dunno," she said. "I'm gonna ask the Doctor if he knows." She began making her way to the front of the vehicle, Sky following closely behind her. The Doctor caught her eye and shrugged before flashing his psychic paper to get into the cockpit.

"What's he doing?" Val said, already sounding half-way to hysteria.

"Calm down," Jessica said. "He knows a lot about this sort of thing." A few moments later the Doctor came out of the cockpit, looking preoccupied. "Well?" Jessica said, folding her arms.

"Just stabilizing," the Doctor said. "Happens all the time."

"I don't need this. I'm on a schedule. This is completely unnecessary," Sky said. 

"Well, not much we can do about it," Jessica said with a shrug.

"They've sent out a distress signal. A truck will be by to pick us up in an hour," the Doctor said. "Everything will be fine."

"How do you know?" said Hobbes. "How much air do we have left?"

"Actually-" Dee Dee began.

"What did he say? Are we running out of air?" said Val.

"I was just speculating-"

"Is that right, Miss?" Biff said to the hostess. "Are we running out of air?"

"Is that what the Captain said?" said Val.

"Alright, stop freaking out," Jessica said.

"How much air have we got?"

"Mum, just stop it," said Jethro.

"Everything's under control-" the hostess tried to say.

"Well, it doesn't look that way to me," Biff said, getting up from his seat and looking like he wanted to punch someone.

"Hey, sit the fuck down and shut up," Jessica said, getting between him and the hostess.

"Don't talk to  _ me _ like that, you-"

"EVERYBODY QUIET!" yelled the Doctor. All eyes turned to him immediately. "Thank you. Now, if you'd care to listen to my good friend Dee Dee…" He nodded at her.

"Oh." She stood up. "Well, it's just that, um, the air's on a circular filter, so we could stay breathing for ten years."

"See?" said the Doctor. "And I've spoken to the captain. Everything's going to be fine." That was when a large  _ something _ hit the metal surrounding them. Twice.

"What was that?" Val said.

"Thanks for jinxing us, Doctor," Jessica muttered to him.

"Yeah, not helpful," he shot back. Two more crashes, further toward the front this time.

"Rocks," Dee Dee said. "They're probably just rocks." Two crashes. “Or the vehicle settling.” Two more crashes, right near the door that separated the cabin from the cockpit.

“Doctor…” Jessica said, but she didn’t get anything else out before Biff went right up to the door and knocked on it three times.

And the large  _ something _ knocked three times back.

“Three times!” Val shrieked. “Did you hear that? It did it three times!”

“It answered,” said Jethro, sounding half awestruck and half terrified.

“It did it three times!”

“Alright, alright, everyone just calm down-” the Doctor said.

“No,” said Sky. “It did, it answered. Don’t tell me that thing isn’t alive; it answered him!” Three more knocks. Three more knocks. The hostess was trying to get them to sit back down, but Sky was truly freaking out now, almost incoherent. “Don’t look at me! It’s not my fault! He started it-” She pointed at the Doctor, finger shaking, and Jessica stepped between them instinctively. “Him and his stories! Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”

“Calm down!” Dee Dee said. The knocking was continuous now, seeming to echo all around them.

“It’s coming for me! It’s coming for me!” Sky screamed. The Doctor seemed to realize what was going to happen a moment before the creature hit.

“Get out of there-” The whole cabin was thrown around, thrashing from one side to the other like a dying fish. Jessica held onto the seat next to her with one hand and reached out to grab the Doctor’s arm with the other. After maybe fifteen seconds, though it felt much longer, they were still again. Jessica opened her eyes, trying to see through the chaos and the darkness and the flickering emergency lighting.

“Arms, legs, neck, head, nose,” the Doctor muttered. “I’m fine. Jessica.” He reached out and realized that she was gripping one of his elbows. “Jessica?”

“I’m fine,” Jessica said, though she did let him go.

“Right,” the Doctor said, then he looked around to the other seven people on the ship. “How are we? Everyone alright?” Murmured assent. The hostess began passing out flashlights - torches, since she was British for some reason. Jessica made a mental note to ask the Doctor why everyone they met in space seemed to be either an alien or British. Jethro had gotten up from his place and begun to approach - Sky. 

Something was wrong with Sky.

“Doctor,” Jessica said. Around her people were vocally and not-so-vocally freaking out. She vaguely heard that the driver and mechanic might be dead, she vaguely registered a door opening to a wasteland and being hurriedly shut again. The Doctor was trying to figure out what had happened to their power, acting more clever than Jessica thought he warranted as usual, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of Sky. “Doctor, I don’t think she’s alright.”

“What’s her name?” said the Doctor, immediately turning the full weight of his attention to Jessica.

“Sky, Sky Silvestry.”

“Right,” the Doctor said. He turned to where Sky was sitting, back turned to them, at the front of the cabin. “Sky? Can you hear me?” He approached her slowly, then he sunk into a squat behind her. “Are you alright? Can you move, Sky?” Jessica could hear her own breathing, the harsh pounding of her heart. Something was terribly wrong, she could feel it. “Just look at me.”

“That noise from outside,” Jethro said slowly. “It’s stopped.”

“Well, thank God for that!” Val said.

“But what if it’s not outside anymore? What if it’s inside?”

“Fuck,” Jessica said.

“It was heading for her,” said Jethro.

“Sky, it’s alright,” the Doctor said, still calm and soothing despite Jethro’s terrifying theory. “I just want you to turn around. Face me.” Jessica almost flinched when Sky moved, lowering her hands from her face and turning around. There was something… wrong. That was the only way to describe it. Her eyes, the movements of her head as she studied the other passengers, there was something  _ inhuman _ about it, like an animal seeing something new and potentially tasty for the first time.

“Sky?” said the Doctor.

“Sky?” Sky parroted, and Jessica was halfway across the cabin to haul him away from her when the Doctor held out a hand to stop her.

“Are you hurt?” the Doctor said.

“Are you hurt?”

“You don’t have to talk.”

“You don’t have to talk.”

“Doctor, get away from her,” Jessica said, and that inhuman gaze was on  _ her _ now, pinning her down,  _ trapping _ her.

“Doctor, get away from her.”

“Jessica, I’m trying to help.”

“Jessica, I’m trying to help.”

“Yeah, well, I think it’d be better-”

“Yeah, well, I think it’d be better-”

“-if you got as far from her as possible.”

“-if you got as far from her as possible.”

“Why’s she doing that?” Hobbes said, and finally,  _ finally  _ that gaze was off her.

“Why’s she doing that?”

“Stop it!” Val almost yelled.

“Stop it!”

“I said stop it!”

“I said stop it!”

“I don’t think she can,” said Dee Dee.

“I don’t think she can.”

"Stop it, now. This isn't funny," said Hobbes.

"Stop it, now. This isn't funny."

"Shh, shh, shh, all of you," the Doctor said, but it was too late. The people around them were freaking out, yelling and screaming and panicking, and all the while the thing inside Sky was parroting them, using their phrases and cadence but in a cold, almost mechanical way. Jessica took the opportunity to drag the Doctor away from her, leading him to the back of the cabin. The lights of the cabin came back on with a snap and a hum, and that was finally enough to stop the passengers cold.

"Oh!" said the hostess. "The backup system." The thing inside Sky was only milliseconds behind them now, and when Jessica caught the Doctor's eye he nodded. He'd noticed as well.

"What about the rescue?" insisted Val. "How long will that take?"

"About sixty minutes, that's all…"

"Doctor," said Jethro nervously.

"Damn it," Jessica muttered, and then she flinched as she realized that the creature had mimicked even that.

"I know," the Doctor said, and he stepped forward.

"What are you doing?" Jessica said, grabbing his arm again. Fucking idiot.

"I need to see-"

"You don't need shit! That thing is in our heads from this far away, what could it do to you if you got closer?"

"What do you mean it's in our heads?" Val said, and then she slammed her hands over her mouth. "Oh, my God, how can she do that? She's got my voice! She's got my words!"

"Just be quiet," the Doctor ordered. "All of you, stop it, please." He tried to go over to her again, but Jessica kept a firm hold. He was going to have bruises after this was over, she suspected, though she had no idea if aliens bruised like humans did.

"Doctor, first she repeated, then she caught up," Jessica said. "What's the next stage?"

"The next stage of what?" Dee Dee said. The Doctor and Jessica looked at each other, but it was Jethro who answered the question.

"That's not her, is it?" he said. "That's not Mrs. Silvestry anymore."

"I don't think so, no," said the Doctor, and the creature was staring at him, saying the words as he said them. "I think," he said, "the more we talk, the more she learns. Now, I'm all for education, but in this case…"

"Doctor, make her stop," Val whimpered.

"Fifty minutes," the Doctor said. "Fifty minutes, that's all we need, and then the rescue will arrive." But Jessica could tell that he was trying to convince himself as much as them. "Besides, she's not exactly strong. Look at her, all she's got is our voices."

"And that's plenty for me," Jessica said.

"Look, whatever that is that's inside her-"

"There's nothing inside her!" Hobbes insisted. "I've made a considerable study, and nothing can live on the surface of Midnight!"

"Professor, I'm glad you've got an absolute definition of life in the universe, but perhaps the universe has got ideas of its own," the Doctor said. "Now, trust me, I've got previous- There is almost certainly some… consciousness inside Mrs. Silvestry."

"Then why do you keep trying to go to her?" Jessica snapped.

"Because maybe she's still in there," he said. Jessica's mouth went dry. She remembered that bit, looking through her eyes as her body moved of its own accord, mind occasionally twisted out of her control when an abusive madman told her that she enjoyed it.

"Okay," she said, "good reason. But how are you going to help her when-"

"I'm sort of a touch telepath." Jessica flinched back from him as though burned. "It doesn't work through clothing," he reassured her quickly, "not with psi-null species, and I'm careful. But with this…"

"You think it's telepathic?"

"I know it is. It's been…" He grimaced. "It's been calling me."

"Excuse me?" Val said, sounding like the worst kind of client that Jessica got, the kind where you sympathized with the cheating partner. "But  _ you're _ an alien? You're an alien  _ too _ ?"

"You're literally on a fucking alien planet," Jessica snapped. "This isn't Whole Foods."

"Okay, okay just calm down," the Doctor said. "Look, I know you're all scared, but the only thing to do is stay back and wait. When the rescue ship comes, we can get her to hospital." Jessica glanced over her shoulder. When no one was talking, the creature was almost creepier, just staring at them with unblinking eyes. And if it was trying to get into the Doctor's head… She felt sick, torn between worry and fear.

"We should throw her out," the hostess said, breaking the silence with a cold precision.

"What?" the Doctor said, sounding shocked that anyone could even propose such a thing.

"We could do that?" said Val.

"Don't be ridiculous," the Doctor said.

"That thing, whatever it is, killed the driver and the mechanic. I don't think she's finished yet," said the hostess.

"God damn it, stop talking!" Biff shouted, not at any of them but at the creature inhabiting Sky.

"Okay, just calm down-" the Doctor said.

"But she won't stop!" Biff said. "And we can't throw her out. We can't even open the doors."

"Nobody is throwing anyone out!" said the Doctor.

"But we can," Dee Dee said. Everyone stared at her. "Throw her out, I mean. The doors…" She detailed how the seals were brought down, how there was a six second safety window where someone could easily be thrown from the vehicle. What was worse was the chorus, though, the way that the creature was making Sky recite the details of her own potential demise. 

"Would it kill her, going outside?" Val said.

"It would certainly kill the physical form," said Dee Dee.

"Nobody is killing anyone!" shouted the Doctor.

"Doctor, if that - that  _ whatever it is _ is trying to get inside your head, if it's strong enough for that," Jessica swallowed back the bile that was rising in her throat, "it might be the only way."

"Jessica, Sky Silvestry might still be in there. I can't risk killing her along with it, not if there's the slightest chance-"

"But what about us?" Val interrupted. "Don't we deserve to live? Or are we not important enough for you?"

"I want to keep every one of you safe-"

"And your friend there just said that might not be an option if we don't do as the hostess has suggested," said Hobbes.

"Woah, I did not say that," said Jessica.

"It's because you're both telepaths, isn't it?" said Val. "You're  _ with _ that thing."

"Oh, don't be stupid," said the Doctor. "Just listen to you all. Do any of you honestly think you could murder someone in cold blood?" There was a long moment of silence.

"I'd do it," said the hostess.

"And me," said Val.

"I'm in," said Biff.

"I," Dee Dee chewed on her lip, and then the rest of her words came out in a rush, "I think we should."

"You can't say that," the Doctor said.

"Why not?" Dee Dee challenged him. "I want to go home. I want to be safe."

"Dee Dee, I promise you, once the rescue comes, we will take her to hospital and everything is going to be fine."

"And if we take it back?" said the hostess. "If it's let loose in civilization, what then?"

"When we get back to base, I'll be there to contain it."

"You haven't done much so far!" said Val.

"She's dangerous," said the hostess. "She's dangerous, and we should be rid of her."

"Wait a minute, Sky's not the one who's dangerous, it's what's controlling her," Jessica said.

"Thank you. You see?" said the Doctor.

"Two people have died," said the hostess.

"Don't make it a third!" For a moment there was silence. "Jethro, what do you say?"

"I'm not killing anyone."

"Good. Thank you."

"He's just a boy," Val said, almost spat.

"What, so I don't get a vote?"

"This isn't a vote! It isn't happening!" said the Doctor. "If you try to throw her out that door, you'll have to go through me first."

"Fine by me," said Biff, stepping forward until he was nose to nose with the Doctor.

"Oh, come on," the Doctor said, "you're not murderers, any of you. Just think about it - could you actually take hold of someone and throw them out that door, any of you?"

"Are you calling me a coward?" Biff spat, shoulders tensing in the telltale prelude to a punch.

"Get away from him," Jessica said.

"What, are you going to make me?"

"Wanna try and find out?"

"No, look- Jessica, this isn't helping," the Doctor said. "Now I know that all of you are scared, I am too, but if we can all just calm down-"

"How are we supposed to calm down when you're an alien too?" Val said. "Chances are you're with that thing-"

"I'm not!"

"If he is," said Biff, "we should throw him out as well."

"No, you won't, because I won't allow it," Jessica snapped.

"Well, of course you'd say that. You're one of them as well."

"Nope, hundred percent human, I'm just not  _ fucking _ insane."

"Listen to me," the Doctor said desperately. "Listen to me, right now, because you need me, all of you! If we're getting out of this alive, you need me!"

"So you keep saying," said Hobbes, and something she couldn't put her finger on was off, "but I've seen no evidence of that thus far." Her heart slammed in her throat. "Are you even a real doctor?" Jessica turned to look at the creature, who had a predatory look in its eye.

"Doctor," she said, and she knew her suspicions were correct, "she's stopped." Everyone turned in the same direction Jessica was looking.

"Has she stopped?" Val said, then she let out a relieved gasp.

"When did she- No she hasn't," said the Doctor in perfect tandem with Sky.

"But then why- She's not doing it with me either!" Biff said.

"Doctor, if she's just doing it with you," Jessica said slowly, "does that mean…" He stepped towards her, squatting down to look her in the eye, and this time Jessica was too frozen to stop him.

"Sky?" he said, and the creature spoke with him. "What are you doing?"

"She's still doing him," Dee Dee said.

"Is she the Doctor now?" Hobbes said. "I mean, if it's only doing him-"

"Why are you doing this?" the Doctor and the creature said. "Why me?"

"Do you see? I said so. He's with her!" Val said.

"No, she won't leave him alone. There's a difference," Jessica said.

"Mrs. Silvestry, I'm trying to understand," the Doctor and the creature said. "Look, whatever you want, if it's life or form or consciousness or voice, you don't have to steal it. You can find it without hurting anyone. And I'll help you - that's a promise. So, what do you think?" And then something shifted. Jessica could tell what was happening a moment before it actually did.

"Have we got a deal?" the creature said half a heartbeat before the Doctor.

"Oh,  _ God _ ," Jessica said.

"She spoke first," Jethro said. "Did you hear that? She spoke first."

"Oh, look at that," the creature said.

"Oh, look at that," said the Doctor.

"I'm ahead of you."

"I'm ahead of you."

"He's copying her," Jethro said.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Jessica said.

"I think it's moved," Sky said.

"I think it's moved."

"I think it's letting me go."

"I think it's letting me go."

"What do you mean?" Dee Dee said. "Is it in the Doctor now? Is that it?"

"Mrs. Silvestry, is that you?" Hobbes said.

"Yes, yes, it's me," said Sky.

"Yes, yes, it's me," repeated the Doctor.

"I'm coming back," she raised her hands, examining them, and that was when Jessica knew it was bullshit. "Look, I can move again."

"I'm coming back," said the Doctor, still except for a faint trembling. "Look, I can move again."

"Cut the crap," Jessica said. "I know you're still the creature, and now you're controlling the Doctor as well. Now get away from him." The creature looked up, straight at her.

"Jessica," she said. "Jessica, Jessica, Jessica."

"Jessica," the Doctor repeated, unable to not replicate the smug tone. "Jessica, Jessica, Jessica." He had never sounded more like Kilgrave. That was probably the point.

"You're inside my head," Jessica said. "Inside all our heads, but you found something you thought you could use in mine. It won't work."

“I’m not manipulating you, Jessica, he is,” the creature said.

“I’m not manipulating you, Jessica,” said the Doctor, “he is.”

“You see!” said Val, sounding relieved. “It’s gone from her to him.”

“But she’s the one talking,” Dee Dee said. “If this is just the next phase-”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I saw it happen. We all did,” said Val. Biff nodded.

“You wanted the Doctor under your control,” Jessica said. She began carefully circling the creature, hoping to make it so all of them, the creature and the Doctor and the passengers, were in front of her instead of at her back. “Why?”

“He’s the alien.”

“He’s the alien,” the Doctor said.

“He’s the telepath.”

“He’s the telepath.”

“So, what, that made him easier to control?” Jessica and the creature had almost switched places at this point. The Doctor was staring up at her, trembling, a vein standing out on his forehead and tears shining in his eyes. If she’d needed any confirmation that he was in there, helpless - But, then again, she had never doubted that, not really, just as the Doctor had never doubted that there was a way to save Sky.

“He lied to you. He betrayed your trust.”

“He lied to you,” the Doctor ground out, eyes begging. “He betrayed your trust.”

“No matter how far you ran, your mind was never safe with him there.”

“No matter how far you ran, your mind was never safe with him there.”

“Wouldn’t you like to think that,” Jessica said, “but not everyone’s a crazy bitch like you are.”

“Do you think you can trust him?”

“Do you think you can trust him?”

“Do you think he’s any different?”

“Do you think he’s any different?” Jessica looked the Doctor in the eye. The tears had spilled over onto his cheeks, and he was incapable of stemming or wiping or hiding them away. Her stomach twisted, and she had never wanted to throw up more than at that moment. His mind was being violated,  _ raped _ as surely as hers had been - worse, maybe, since he was a telepath.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, and then she looked up and glared at the creature that had taken over Sky Silvestry’s body. “Alright, that’s enough.” The creature’s eyes widened deliberately.

“What are you talking about?” it said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m me, your friend,” it said.

“I’m me, your friend.”

“It’s in him. He needs to go.”

“It’s in him. He needs to go.”

“Throw him out!”

“Throw him out!”

“Cast him out!”

“Cast him out!”

Those last few sentences seemed to snap Biff into action. He began to move towards the Doctor, hesitantly at first but then more confidently, and more angrily.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jessica said.

“What we should have done from the start. He needs to go.”

“Look at him! It’s still in her, she’s just-”

“Do you want to get thrown out, too?” shrieked Val.

“Can we just calm down?” Dee Dee tried, but she was drowned out by the rest of them.

“Yes, throw him out!” said the creature.

“Yes, throw him out!”

“You know it’s the right option.”

“You know it’s the right option.”

“He can’t fight back.”

“He can’t fight back.” But  _ fuck _ was he trying, every muscle in his body trembling, fighting, desperately trying to do  _ something _ .

“But I sure as fuck can,” Jessica said.

“Do you want to join him?” Hobbes said incredulously.

“You don’t stand a chance,” Jessica said.

“Get her!” Val yelled. “What kind of a man are you?”

“Yeah!” Biff said, and then he came at her. Jessica caught his punch effortlessly, and then she picked him up by the arm and threw him into the wall of the vehicle. She glowered at the creature and the other passengers. The thing in Sky’s body was looking annoyingly and frighteningly smug, but at least everyone’s ire was focused on her now and not the Doctor. She could at least fight back.

“You’re one of them,” Val gasped, pointing at Jessica with a shaking finger. “You’re  _ one of them _ .” Jessica bared her teeth in a sneer.

“Anyone else want a go?” she growled. 

“Oh, God, Dad,” Jethro said. “What’d you do to Dad?”

“He’s fine, just winded. Lucky bastard as well, when I’m quite capable of snapping his neck.”

“She can’t fight you all,” the creature said.

“She can’t fight you all,” said the Doctor.

“Get her!”

“Get her!” But the mob mentality that the creature had so carefully created had broken. That’s all it took, really: one piece of proper resistance. None of the Doctor’s lovey-dovey bullshit, none of Dee Dee or Jethro’s half-hearted protests, just Jessica and her strength and her willingness to fight a bitch. The other passengers shifted, taking half steps forward and back, but none of them wanted to actually physically confront someone who was able to fight back. Cowards, all of them. Jessica smirked at the creature.

“No one is touching him,” she said. “Not while I’m here. And that goes for you too. Let him go.” Something flashed in the creature’s eyes, and that should have been Jessica’s first indication that things were about to carreen out of her control.

“You poor, stupid little girl,” the creature said.

“You poor, stupid little girl.” 

“Do you really think he cares about you?”

“Do you really think he cares about you?”

“Cares about anyone?”

“Cares about anyone?”

“Surely you can see what he is.”

“Surely you can see what he is.”

“Empty.”

“Empty.”

“Broken.”

“Broken.” He looked like he wanted to curl up in a ball and die, like he would’ve right there in front of everyone if he’d had the choice. When this was over, she was definitely going to force the Doctor to find some telepath therapy or something. Jessica was so distracted by the look in the Doctor’s eyes that she didn’t even register the way her lips, cheeks, tongue moved, forming shapes and sounds without her permission.

“Broken,” she said mechanically, in the same horribly satisfied tone as the creature. The Doctor’s eyes widened slightly, the only freedom he had left, and Jessica thought she was actually going to be sick now.

She could  _ feel  _ it in her mind. It was different from Kilgrave, more blatantly invasive, more permanent. She knew instinctively that if she didn’t do  _ something _ right that moment, something to stop it, she would be as trapped as the Doctor. It was already gaining purchase, putting down roots. She opened her mouth, but it was moving of its own accord again.

“Broken?” she said, and if she didn’t suspect it would risk her tenuous control she would have tried to fistpump. She had managed to turn that word into a challenging question, and she could feel the power it gave her. “ _ Broken _ ?” Again, stronger. She felt on the precipice of something. It was like hesitating to follow Kilgrave, it was like refusing to let go of his arm. The first step was not obeying. The second step… she forced her mouth into patterns that felt almost foreign with that  _ thing _ in her head. “I don’t think so.”

She put one foot forward, and then another. It was like trying to move deliberately through a nightmare, but she  _ was _ able to move. The creature was staring at her, open-mouthed, and for the first time it looked afraid.

Good. Damn good. It  _ should _ be afraid of her.

“Oh my God, she’s fighting it,” the hostess said. Jessica maneuvered her lips into an almost feral grin. One, two. It was becoming easier with each step. Freedom was a muscle like any other, she realized, and resisting Kilgrave had made hers stronger than most. She continued until she was nose to nose with the creature, looking it straight in the eye.

“Impossible,” said the creature.

“Impossible,” said the Doctor.

“Very fucking possible,” said Jessica, and then she grabbed the creature by the collar and hauled it towards the emergancy exit. It clawed at her face and neck and hand, screaming, and she could hear the Doctor screaming along with it. She dragged her hand against its resistance, punched the button that opened the door to the airless, lifeless outside, and clung to the wall with all her considerable strength.

Six seconds. That was all it took for the shields to lower. The creature was sucked outside, screaming all the while. Jessica collapsed to the ground when she felt its tendrils leave her mind for good.

“It’s gone,” the Doctor gasped behind her, and Jessica turned to look at him. His eyes were somehow too bright and too hollow, and she had never seen anyone look so destroyed. “It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone.” She crawled over to him, not willing to bother making her legs work again just yet.

“You’re okay,” she murmured. She grabbed his wrist, and she’d never been so glad to have someone try to twist away from her. She let him go anyways, no matter how much she wanted something physical to hold onto. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” It took her a moment to register what his steady mantra had turned into.

“‘M sorry,” he was muttering now. “‘M sorry, ‘m sorry, ‘m so sorry.”

“Shut up, moron,” she said. He looked at her. “We’re okay, so you can shut up now.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, and then he didn’t say anything until the rescue team got there.

* * *

She’d disappeared into the TARDIS as soon as they’d gotten back to the Pleasure Palace. He needed to talk with Donna, with someone who understood him and wasn’t an emotional basket case, and she really did have to puke. Thankfully the TARDIS seemed to realize that, and the first door she opened led to a bathroom with a fully stocked medicine cabinet and a huge tub.

After being sick twice, taking something futuristic that promised to cure her nausea, and soaking in the tub for three hours without the water going cold, Jessica felt a little bit more human. More importantly, she was at least somewhat ready to confront the Doctor about what had happened on Midnight. The TARDIS seemed to understand her on that front as well, since it deposited her not in the console room but in a library that she’d never seen in her life. If she’d been more into reading, she supposed that she’d be able to get lost in the mahogany bookcases for hours, but she was more concerned with the alien who was curled up, literally curled up in a fetal position, on an armchair next to a roaring fireplace.

“Hey,” said Jessica, approaching him slowly. He didn’t react. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m fine.” Then he looked up and seemed to register just who he was talking to. He uncurled quickly, too quickly. “Are you okay?” Jessica swallowed.

“Eh, I started dealing with it, had a breakdown,” she shrugged, “so I’d say I’m about fifty-fifty. I’ll be fine.” He nodded, eyes slipping away from her and towards the fire. “Did you talk about it with Donna?”

“Some.”

“Please tell me there are telepath therapists or something that could…” He nodded.

“I can help you find one. Whatever you need.”

“I was talking about you, you asshole.”

“Oh.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t need- It wouldn’t- It would be a bad idea.”

“What kind of bad idea are we talking about?” Jessica said. “Is it a ‘I’m not ready to think about therapy, so fuck off’ kind of bad idea? Or is it a ‘people have weird hang-ups about mind rape’ kind of bad idea? Or is it a Time Lord thing?” She was vaguely aware that he was the last of his species apparently, so that might actually make the whole therapy thing complicated.

“A little of column B, a little of column C,” the Doctor said, his attempt at breezy humor dropping to the floor like a stone. “Telepathic species don’t get… invaded like that.”

“Well, demonstrably they do.”

“And especially not a species as telepathically powerful as the Gallifreyans.” Jessica stared at him.

“That,” she said at last, “is bullshit. You know it’s bullshit.”

“It shouldn’t have been able to - to  _ take  _ me like that, not if I was half as in control as I ought to be.”

“Bullshit.”

“You don’t understand-”

“I understand enough to know that it’s bullshit.”

“You were able to fight it off!” Now they were getting to the core of the issue, though Jessica had hoped to hell that he’d been brooding about anything other than this.

“I was also controlled by a mind raping asshole for a year,” she said. “You know that. You can’t blame yourself for-”

“But I knew what was happening!” His hands curled in his hair, tugging in a way that had to be painful, and if Jessica hadn’t been certain that her touch would just make things worse she would have done something about it. “I  _ felt _ it trying to get in my head, and then I went and invited it in. They’re completely different circumstances!”

“Oh, come off it. Even if you had invited it,” and she had her doubts about that, “it still violated you. Just looking in your eyes- You were begging it to let you go, and it kept doing - doing that.”

“I should have been able to push it out.”

“And I should have been able to keep from calling you broken,” Jessica said. “I should have chucked it out the moment it took control of you. If this is on you, then it’s on me as well.”

“You’re not telepathic.”

“Might as well be,” she said. For a moment they just stared at each other. The Doctor looked exhausted, exhausted in the same way Jessica had been exhausted after breaking free of Kilgrave, exhausted in his soul. She cleared her throat.

“Just promise me you’ll try to find someone,” Jessica said. “Doesn’t have to be a professional, just someone you trust. You can’t bottle this up forever.”

“Try me,” he said darkly.

“No,” she said. “I’m serious.” It felt childish, but she forced herself to say one last word. “Promise?” The Doctor stared for a few seconds more, and then he nodded. Jessica only barely prevented herself from sighing in relief.

Midnight wasn’t behind them, not by a long shot. She knew that she would be waking up from nightmares for months to come, and she was willing to bet the Doctor would have even worse. Part of her wanted to kick herself for the backsliding, but that wouldn’t do her any good. This time, Jessica thought, she had more reasons to try to claw her way to recovery, a whole universe of reasons.

It felt a little bit like a victory.


End file.
